973.7L63    Old  South  Leaflets  No.  85 
C4L63f 

cop.  2      The  First  Lincoln  and 
Douglas  Debate 


LINCOLN  ROOM 


UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS 
LIBRARY 

presented  by 

James  G.  and  Ruth  Painter  Randall 
Collection 


No.  85. 


The  First 

Lincoln  and 

Douglas  Debate. 


AT  OTTAWA,  ILL.,  AUG.  21, ' 


MR.  DOUGLAS'S  OPENING  SPEECH. 

Ladies  and  Gentlemen, — I  appear  before  you  to-day  for  the 
purpose  of  discussing  the  leading  political  topics  which  now 
agitate  the  public  mind.  By  an  arrangement  between  Mr. 
Lincoln  and  myself,  we  are  present  here  to-day  for  the  purpose 
of  having  a  joint  discussion,  as  the  representatives  of  the  two 
great  political  parties  of  the  State  and  Union,  upon  the  prin- 
ciples in  issue  between  those  parties  ;  and  this  vast  concourse 
of  people  shows  the  deep  feeling  which  pervades  the  public 
mind  in  regard  to  the  questions  dividing  us. 

Prior  to  1854,  this  country  was  divided  into  two  great 
political  parties,  known  as  the  Whig  and  Democratic  parties. 
Both  were  national  and  patriotic,  advocating  principles  that 
were  universal  in  their  application.  An  old-line  Whig  could 
proclaim  his  principles  in  Louisiana  and  Massachusetts  alike. 
Whig  principles  had  no  boundary  sectional  line  :  they  were 
not  limited  by  the  Ohio  River,  nor  by  the  Potomac,  nor  by  the 
line  of  the  free  and  slave  States,  but  applied  and  were  pro- 
claimed wherever  the  Constitution  ruled  or  the  American  flag 
waived  over  the  American  soil.  So  it  was  and  so  it  is  with  the 
great  Democratic  party,  which,  from  the  days  of  Jefferson  until 
this  period,  has  proven  itself  to  be  the  historic  party  of  this 
nation.  While  the  Whig  and  Democratic  parties  differed  in 
regard  to  a  bank,  the  tariff,  distribution,  the  specie  circular, 
and  the  sub-treasury,  they  agreed  on  the  great  slavery  question 


which  now  agitates  the  Union.  I  say  that  the  Whig  party  and 
the  Democratic  party  agreed  on  the  slavery  question,  while 
they  differed  on  those  matters  of  expediency  to  which  I  have 
referred.  The  Whig  party  and  the  Democratic  party  jointly 
adopted  the  compromise  measures  of  1856  as  the  basis  of  a 
proper  and  just  solution  of  the  slavery  question  in  all  its 
forms.  Clay  was  the  great  leader,  with  Webster  on  his  right 
and  Cass  on  his  left,  and  sustained  by  the  patriots  in  the  Whig 
and  Democratic  ranks  who  had  devised  and  enacted  the 
compromise  measures  of  1850. 

In  1851  the  Whig  party  and  the  Democratic  party  united  in 
Illinois  in  adopting  resolutions  indorsing  and  approving  the 
principles  of  the  compromise  measures  of  1850  as  the  proper 
adjustment  of  that  question.  In  1852,  when  the. Whig  party 
assembled  in  convention  at  Baltimore  for  the  purpose  of 
nominating  a  candidate  for  the  presidency,  the  first  thing  it  did 
was  to  declare  the  compromise  measures  of  1850,  in  substance 
and  in  principle,  a  suitable  adjustment  of  that  question.  [Here 
the  speaker  was  interrupted  by  loud  and  long-continued  ap- 
plause.] My  friends,  silence  will  be  more  acceptable  to  me' 
in  the  discussion  of  these  questions  than  applause.  I  desire  to 
address  myself  to  your  judgment,  your  understanding,  and  your 
consciences,  and  not  to  your  passions  or  your  enthusiasm. 
When  the  Democratic  convention  assembled  in  Baltimore  in 
the  same  year,  for  the  purpose  of  nominating  a  Democratic 
candidate  for  the  presidency,  it  also  adopted  the  compromise 
measures  of  ,1850  as  the  basis  of  Democratic  action.  Thus 
you  see  that  up  to  1853-54  the  Whig  party  and  the  Democratic 
party  both  stood  on  the  same  platform  with  regard  to  the 
slavery  question.  That  platform  was  the  right  of  the  people 
of  each  State  and  each  Territory  to  decide  their  local  and 
domestic  institutions  for  themselves,  subject  only  to  the  Federal 
Constitution. 

During  the  session  of  Congress  of  1853-54  I  introduced 
into  the  Senate  of  the  United  States  a  bill  to  organize  the 
Territories  of  Kansas  and  Nebraska  on  that  principle  which 
had  bften  adopted  in  the  compromise  measures  of  1850,  ap- 
proved by  the  Whig  party  and  the  Democratic  party  in  Illinois 
in  1851,  and  indorsed  by  the  Whig  party  and  the  Democratic 
party  in  national  convention  in  1852.  In  order  that  there 
might  be  no  misunderstanding  in  relation  to  the  principle 
involved  in  the  Kansas  and  Nebraska  bill,  I  put  forth  the  true 


9  7 


/3 

3 


Cop 

intent  and  meaning  of  the  act  in  these  words  :  "  It  is  the  true 

intent  and  meaning  of  this  act  not  to  legislate  slavery  into  any 
State  or  Territory,  or  to  exclude  it  therefrom,  but  to  leave  the 
people  thereof  perfectly  free  to  form  and  regulate  their  domes- 
tic institutions  in  their  own  way,  subject  only  to  the  Federal 
Constitution."  Thus  you  see  that  up  to  1854,  when  the  Kan- 
sas and  Nebraska  bill  was  brought  into  Congress  for  the  pur- 
pose of  carrying  out  the  principles  which  both  parties  had  up 
to  that  time  indorsed  and  approved,  there  had  been  no  division 
in  this  country  in  regard  to  that  principle  except  the  opposi- 
tion of  the  Abolitionists.  In  the  House  of  Representatives 
of  the  Illinois  legislature,  upon  a  resolution  asserting  that 
principle,  every  Whig  and  every  Democrat  in  the  House  voted 
in  the  affirmative,  and  only  four  men  voted  against  it,  and 
those  four  were  old-line  Abolitionists. 

In  1854  Mr.  Abraham  Lincoln  and  Mr.  Lyman  Trumbull  en- 
tered into  an  arrangement,  one  with  the  other,  and  each  with 
his  respective  friends,  to  dissolve  the  old  Whig  party  on  the 
one  hand,  and  to  dissolve  the  old  Democratic  party  on  the 
other,  and  to  connect  the  members  of  both  into  an  Abolition 
party,  under  the  name  and  disguise  of  a  Republican  party. 
The  terms  of  that  arrangement  between  Lincoln  and  Trum- 
bull have  been  published  by  Lincoln's  special  friend,  James  H. 
Matheny,  Esq.  ;  and  they  were  that  Lincoln  should  have 
General  Shields's  place  in  the  United  States  Senate,  which 
was  then  about  to  become  vacant,  and  that  Trumbull  should 
have  my  seat  when  my  term  expired.  Lincoln  went  to  work 
to  Abolitionize  the  Old  Whig  party  all  over  the  State,  pretend- 
ing that  he  was  then  as  good  a  Whig  as  ever  ;  and  Trumbull 
went  to  work  in  his  part  of  the  State  preaching  Abolitionism 
in  its  milder  and  lighter  form,  and  trying  to  Abolitionize  the 
Democratic  party,  and  bring  old  Democrats  handcuffed  and 
bound  hand  and  foot  into  the  Abolition  camp.  In  pursu- 
ance of  the  arrangement  the  parties  met  at  Springfield  in 
October,  1854,  and  proclaimed  their  new  platform.  Lincoln 
was  to  bring  into  the  Abolition  camp  the  old-line  Whigs,  and 
transfer  them  over  to  Giddings,  Chase,  Fred  Douglass,  and 
Parson  Lovejoy,  who  were  ready  to  receive  them  and  christen 
them  in  their  new  faith.  They  laid  down  on  that  occasion 
a  platform  for  their  new  Republican  party,  which  was  thus  to 
be  constructed.  I  have  the  resolutions  of  the  State  conven- 
tion then  held,  which  was  the  first  mass  State  convention 


ever  held  in  Illinois  by  the  Black  Republican  party ;  and  I  now 
hold  them  in  my  hands  and  will  read  a  part  of  them,  and 
cause  the  others  to  be  printed.  Here  are  the  most  important 
and  material  resolutions  of  this  Abolition  platform  :  — 

1.  Resolved,  That   we  believe  this  truth  to  be  self-evident,  that,  when 
parties  become  subversive  of  the  ends  for  which  they  are  established,  or 
incapable  of  restoring  the  government  to  the  true  principles  of  the  Consti- 
tution, it  is  the  right  and  duty  of  the  people  to  dissolve  the  political  bands 
by  which  they  may  have  been  connected  therewith,  and  to  organize  new 
parties  upon  such  principles  and  with  such  views  as  the  circumstances  and 
the  exigencies  of  the  nation  may  demand. 

2.  Resolved,  Thar  the  times  imperatively  demand  the  reorganization  of 
parties,  and,  repudiating  all  previous  party  attachments,  names,  and  predi- 
lections, we  unite  ourselves  together  in  defence  of  the  liberty  and  Constitu- 
tion of  the  country,  and  will  hereafter  co-operate  as  the  Republican  party, 
pledged  to  the  accomplishment  of  the  following  purposes :  to  bring  the 
administration  of  the  government  back  to  the  control  of  first  principles; 
to  restore  Nebraska  and  Kansas  to  the  position  of  free  Territories ;  that, 
as  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  vests  in  the  States,  and  not  in 
Congress,  the  power  to  legislate  for  the  extradition  of  fugitives  from  labor, 
to  repeal  and  entirely  abrogate  the  fugitive-slave  law ;  to  restrict  slavery  to 
those  States  in  which  it  exists ;  to  prohibit  the  admission  of  any  more  slave 
States  into  the  Union;  to  abolish  slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia;  to 
exclude  slavery  from  all  the  Territories  over  which  the  general  government 
has  exclusive   jurisdiction;   and   to  resist   the  acquirement   of   any  more 
Territories  unless  the  practice  of  slavery  therein  forever  shall  have  been 
prohibited. 

3.  Resolved,  That  in  furtherance  of  these  principles  we  will  use  such  con- 
stitutional and  lawful  means  as  shall  seem  best  adapted  to  their  accomplish- 
ment, and  that  we  will  support  no  man  for  office,  under  the  general  or  State 
government,  who  is  not  positively  and  fully  committed  to  the  support  of 
these  principles,  and  whose  personal  character  and  conduct  is  not  a 
guarantee  that  he  is  reliable,  and  who  shall  not  have  abjured  old  party 
allegiance  and  ties. 

Now,  gentlemen,  your  Black  Republicans  have  cheered 
every  one  of  those  propositions  ;  and  yet  I  venture  to  say  that 
you  cannot  get  Mr.  Lincoln  to  come  out  and  say  that  he  is 
now  in  favor  of  each  one  of  them.  That  these  propositions, 
one  and  all,  constitute  the  platform  of  the  Black  Republican 
party  of  this  day,  I  have  no  doubt;  and,  when  you  were  not 
aware  for  what  purpose  I  was  reading  them,  your  Black  Re- 
publicans cheered  them  as  good  Black  Republican  doctrines. 
My  object  in  reading  these  resolutions  was  to  put  the  question 
to  Abraham  Lincoln  this  day,  whether  he  now  stands  and  will 
stand  by  each  article  in  that  creed,  and  carry  it  out.  I  desire 
to  know  whether  Mr.  Lincoln  to-day  stands  as  he  did  in  1854, 


s 

in  favor  of  the  unconditional  repeal  of  the  fugitive-slave  law. 
I  desire  him  to  answer  whether  he  stands  pledged  to-day,  as 
he  did  in  1854,  Against  the  admission  of  any  more  slave 
States  into  the  Union,  even  if  the  people  want  them.  I  want 
to  know  whether  he  stands  pledged  against  the  admission  of 
a  new  State  into  the  Union  with  such  a  constitution  as  the 
people  of  that  State  may  see  fit  to  make.  I  want  to  know 
whether  he  stands  to-day  pledged  to  the  abolition  of  slavery  in 
the  District  of  Columbia.  I  desire  him  to  answer  whether  he 
stands  pledged  to  the  prohibition  of  the  slave-trade  between 
the  different  States.  I  desire  to  know  whether  he  stands 
pledged  to  prohibit  slavery  in  all  the  Territories  of  the  United 
States,  north  as  well  as  south  of  the  Missouri  Compromise 
line.  I  desire  him  to  answer  whether  he  is  opposed  to  the 
acquisition  of  any  more  territory  unless  slavery  is  prohibited 
therein.  I  want  his  answer  to  these  questions.  Your  affirma- 
tive cheers  in  favor  of  this  Abolition  platform  are  not  satis- 
factory. I  ask  Abraham  Lincoln  to  answer  these  questions, 
in  order  that,  when  I  trot  him  down  to  lower  Egypt,  I  may 
put  the  same  questions  to  him.  My  principles  are  the  same 
everywhere.  I  can  proclaim  them  alike  in  the  North,  the 
South,  the  East,  and  the  West.  My  principles  will  apply 
wherever  the  Constitution  prevails  and  the  American  flag 
waves.  I  desire  to  know  whether  Mr.  Lincoln's  principles 
will  bear  transplanting  from  Ottawa  to  Jonesboro  ?  I  put 
these  questions  to  him  to-day  distinctly,  and  ask  an  answer. 
I  have  a  right  to  an  answer ;  for  I  quote  from  the  platform  of 
the  Republican  party,  made  by  himself  and  others  at  the  time 
that  party  was  formed,  and  the  bargain  made  by  Lincoln  to 
dissolve  and  kill  the  Old  Whig  party,  and  transfer  its  mem- 
bers, bound  hand  and  foot,  to  the  Abolition  party,  under  the 
direction  of  Giddings  and  Fred  Douglass.  In  the  remarks 
I  have  made  on  this  platform,  and  the  position  of  Mr.  Lincoln 
upon  it,  I  mean  nothing  personally  disrespectful  or  unkind  to 
that  gentleman.  I  have  known  him  for  nearly  twenty-five 
years.  There  were  many  points  of  sympathy  between  us 
when  we  first  got  acquainted.  We  were  both  comparatively 
boys,  and  both  struggling  with  poverty  in  a  strange  land. 
I  was  a  school-teacher  in  the  town  of  Winchester,  and  he  a 
flourishing  grocery-keeper  in  the  town  of  Salem.  He  was 
more  successful  in  his  occupation  than  I  was  in  mine,  and 
hence  more  fortunate  in  this  world's  goods.  Lincoln  is  one  of 


those  peculiar  men  who  perform  with  admirable  skill  even-thing 
which  they  undertake.  I  made  as  good  a  school-teacher  as 
I  could,  and,  when  a  cabinet-maker,  I  made  a  good  bedstead 
and  tables,  although  my  old  boss  said  I  succeeded  better  with 
bureaus  and  secretaries  than  with  anything  else  :  but  I  be- 
lieve that  Lincoln  was  always  more  successful  in  business 
than  I,  for  his  business  enabled  him  to  get  into  the  legisla- 
ture. I  met  him  there,  however,  and  had  sympathy  with  him, 
because  of  the  up-hill  struggle  we  both  had  in  life.  He  was 
then  just  as  good  at  telling  an  anecdote  as  now.  He  could 
beat  any  of  the  boys  wrestling  or  running  a  foot-race,  in 
pitching  quoits  or  tossing  a  copper ;  could  ruin  more  liquor 
than  all  the  boys  of  the  town  together;  and  the  dignity  and 
impartiality  with  which  he  presided  at  a  horse-race  or  fist- 
fight  excited  the  admiration  and  won  the  praise  of  every- 
body that  was  present  and  participated.  I  sympathized  with 
him  because  he  was  struggling  with  difficulties,  and  so  was  I. 
Mr.  Lincoln  served  with  me  in  the  legislature  in  1836,  when  we 
both  retired;  and  he  subsided  or  became  submerged,  and  he 
was  lost  sight  of  as  a  public  man  for  some  years.  In  1846, 
when  Wilmot  introduced  his  celebrated  proviso,  and  the 
Abolition  tornado  swept  over  the  country.  Lincoln  again  turned 
up  as  a  member  of  Congress  from  the  Sangamon  district. 
I  was  then  in  the  Senate  of  the  United  States,  and  was  glad  to 
welcome  my  old  friend  and  companion.  \Yhilst  in  Congress, 
he  distinguished  himself  by  his  opposition  to  the  Mexican  war, 
taking  the  side  of  the  common  enemy  against  his  own  country  ; 
and,  when  he  returned  home,  he  found  that  the  indignation  of 
the  people  followed  him  everywhere,  and  he  was  again  sub- 
merged, or  obliged  to  retire  into  private  life,  forgotten  by  his 
former  friends.  He  came  up  again  in  1854,  just  in  time  to 
make  this  Abolition  or  Black  Republican  platform,  in  company 
with  Giddings,  Lovejoy,  Chase,  and  Fred  Douglass,  for  the 
Republican  party  to  stand  upon.  Trumbull,  too,  was  one  of 
our  own  contemporaries.  He  was  born  and  raised  in  old 
Connecticut,  was  bred  a  Federalist,  but,  removing  to  Georgia, 
turned  Nullifier  when  nullification  was  popular,  and,  as  soon  as 
he  disposed  of  his  clocks  and  wound  up  his  business,  migrated 
to  Illinois,  turned  politician  and  lawyer  here,  and  made  his 
appearance  in  1841  as  a  member  of  the  legislature.  He  be- 
came noted  as  the  author  of  the  scheme  to  repudiate  a  large 
portion  of  the  State  debt  of  Illinois,  which,  if  successful,  would 


have  brought  infamy  and  disgrace  upon  the  fair  escutcheon  of 
our  glorious  State.  The  odium  attached  to  that  measure  con- 
signed him  to  oblivion  for  a  time.  I  helped  to  do  it.  I  walked 
into  a  public  meeting  in  the  hall  of  the  House  of  Representa- 
tives, and  replied  to  his  repudiating  speeches,  and  resolutions 
were  carried  over  his  head  denouncing  repudiation,  and 
asserting  the  moral  and  legal  obligation  of  Illinois  to  pay 
every  dollar  of  the  debt  she  owed  and  every  bond  that  bore 
her  seal.  Trumbull's  malignity  has  followed  me  since  I  thus 
defeated  his  infamous  scheme. 

These  two  men,  having  formed  this  combination  to  Aboli- 
tionize  the  Old  Whig  part}'  and  the  old  Democratic  part)',  and 
put  themselves  into  the  Senate  of  the  United  States,  in  pursu- 
ance of  their  bargain,  are  now  carrying  out  that  arrangement. 
Matheny  states  that  Trumbull  broke  faith;  that  the  bargain 
was  that  Lincoln  should  be  the  senator  in  Shields's  place,  and 
Trumbull  was  to  wait  for  mine ;  and  the  story  goes  that  Trum- 
bull cheated  Lincoln,  having  control  of  four  or  five  Abolition- 
ized  Democrats  who  were  holding  over  in  the  Senate.  He 
would  not  let  them  vote  for  Lincoln,  which  obliged  the  rest  of 
the  Abolitionists  to  support  him  in  order  to  secure  an  Abolition 
senator.  There  are  a  number  of  authorities  for  the  truth  of 
this  besides  Matheny,  and  I  suppose  that  even  Mr.  Lincoln 
will  not  deny  it. 

Mr.  Lincoln  demands  that  he  shall  have  the  place  intended 
for  Trumbull,  as  Trumbull  cheated  him  and  got  his ;  and 
Trumbull  is  stumping  the  State,  traducing  me  for  the  purpose 
of  securing  the  position  for  Lincoln,  in  order  to  quiet  him.  It 
was  in  consequence  of  this  arrangement  that  the  Republican 
convention  was  impanelled  to  instruct  for  Lincoln  and  nobody 
else;  and  it  was  on  this  account  that  they  passed  resolutions 
that  he  was  their  first,  their  last,  and  their  only  choice. 
Archy  Williams  was  nowhere,  Browning  was  nobody,  Went- 
worth  was  not  to  be  considered ;  they  had  no  man  in  the 
Republican  part}-  for  the  place  except  Lincoln,  for  the  reason 
that  he  demanded  that  they  should  carry  out  the  arrangement. 

Having  formed  this  new  party  for  the  benefit  of  deserters 
from  Whiggery  and  deserters  from  Democracy,  and  having 
laid  down  the  Abolition  platform  which  I  have  read,  Lincoln 
now  takes  his  stand  and  proclaims  his  Abolition  doctrines. 
Let  me  read  a  part  of  them.  In  his  speech  at  Springfield  to 
the  convention  which  nominated  him  for  the  Senate  he  said  :  — 


8 

In  my  opinion,  it  will  not  cease  until  a  crisis  shall  have  been  reached 
and  passed.  "  A  house  divided  against  itself  cannot  stand."  I  believe 
this  government  cannot  endure  permanently  half  slave  and  half  free.  I  do 
not  expect  the  Union  to  be  dissolved, —  I  do  not  expect  the  house  to  fall, — 
but  I  do  expect  it  will  cease  to  be  divided.  It  will  become  all  one  thing 
or  all  the  other.  Either  the  opponents  of  slavery  will  arrest  the  further 
spread  of  it,  and  place  it  where  the  public  mind  shall  rest  in  the  belief  that 
it  is  in  the  course  of  ultimate  extinction,  or  its  advocates  will  push  it 
forward  till  it  shall  become  alike  lawful  in  all  the  States, —  old  as  well  as 
new,  North  as  well  as  South.  ["  Good,"  "  Good,"  and  cheers.] 

I  am  delighted  to  hear  you  Black  Republicans  say,"  Good." 
I  have  no  doubt  that  doctrine  expresses  your  sentiments  ;  and 
I  will  prove  to  you  now,  if  you  will  listen  to  me,  that  it  is  revo- 
lutionary and  destructive  of  the  existence  of  this  government. 
Mr.  Lincoln,  in  the  extract  from  which  I  have  read,  says  that 
this  government  cannot  endure  permanently  in  the  same 
condition  in  which  it  was  made  by  its  framers  —  divided  into 
free  and  slave  States.  He  says  that  it  has  existed  for  about 
seventy  years  thus  divided,  and  yet  he  tells  you  that  it  cannot 
endure  permanently  on  the  same  principles  and  in  the  same 
relative  condition  in  which  our  fathers  made  it.  Why  can  it 
not  exist  divided  into  free  and  slave  States?  Washington, 
Jefferson,  Franklin,  Madison,  Hamilton,  Jay,  and  the  great 
men  of  that  day  made  this  government  divided  into  'free  States 
and  slave  States,  and  left  each  State  perfectly  free  to  do  as  it 
pleased  on  the  subject  of  slavery.  Why  can  it  not  exist  on 
the  same  principles  on  which  our  fathers  made  it?  They 
knew  when  they  framed  the  Constitution  that  in  a  country  as 
wide  and  broad  as  this,  with  such  a  variety  of  climate,  pro- 
duction, and  interest,  the  people  necessarily  required  differ- 
ent laws  and  institutions  in  different  localities.  They  knew 
that  the  laws  and  regulations  which  would  suit  the  granite 
hills  of  New  Hampshire  would  be  unsuited  to  the  rice  planta- 
tions of  South  Carolina  ;  and  they  therefore  provided  that  each 
State  should  retain  its  own  legislature  and  its  own  sovereignty, 
with  the  full  and  complete  power  to  do  as  it  pleased  within  its 
own  limits,  in  all  that  was  local  and  not  national.  One  of  the 
reserved  rights  of  the  States  was  the  right  to  regulate  the 
relations  between  master  and  servant,  on  the  slavery  question. 
At  the  time  the  Constitution  was  framed  there  were  thir- 
teen States  in  the  Union,  twelve  of  which  were  slaveholding 
States  and  one  a  free  State.  Suppose  this  doctrine  of  uni- 
formity preached  by  Mr.  Lincoln,  that  the  States  should  all 


be  free  or  all  be  slave,  had  prevailed ;  and  what  would  have 
been  the  result?  Of  course,  the  twelve  slaveholding  States 
would  have  overruled  the  one  free  State ;  and  slavery  would 
have  been  fastened  by  a  constitutional  provision  on  every 
inch  of  the  American  republic,  instead  of  being  left,  as  our 
fathers  wisely  left  it,  to  each  State  to  decide  for  itself.  Here 
I  assert  that  uniformity  in  the  local  laws  and  institutions 
of  the  different  States  is  neither  possible  nor  desirable.  If 
uniformity  had  been  adopted  when  the  government  was  estab- 
lished, it  must  inevitably  have  been  the  uniformity  of  slavery 
everywhere,  or  else  the  uniformity  of  negro  citizenship  and 
negro  equality  everywhere. 

We  are  told  by  Lincoln  that  he  is  utterly  opposed  to  the 
Dred  Scott  decision,  and  will  not  submit  to  it,  for  the  reason 
that  he  says  it  deprives  the  negro  of  the  rights  and  privileges 
of  citizenship.  That  is  the  first  and  main  reason  which  he 
assigns  for  his  warfare  on  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United 
States  and  its  decision.  I  ask  you,  Are  you  in  favor  of  con- 
ferring upon  the  negro  the  rights  and  privileges  of  citizenship  ? 
Do  you  desire  to  strike  out  of  our  State  constitution  that  clause 
which  keeps  slaves  and  free  negroes  out  of  the  State,  and  allow 
the  free  negroes  to  flow  in,  and  cover  your  prairies  with  black 
settlements  ?  Do  you  desire  to  turn  this  beautiful  State  into  a 
free  negro  colony,  in  order  that,  when  Missouri  abolishes 
slavery,  she  can  send  one  hundred  thousand  emancipated  slaves 
into  Illinois,  to  become  citizens  and  voters,  on  an  equality  with 
yourselves  ?  If  you  desire  negro  citizenship,  if  you  desire  to 
allow  them  to  come  into  the  State  and  settle  with  the  white 
man,  if  you  desire  them  to  vote  on  an  equality  with  yourselves, 
and  to  make  them  eligible  to  office,  to  serve  on  juries,  and  to 
adjudge  your  rights,  then  support  Mr.  Lincoln  and  the  Black 
Republican  party,  who  are  in  favor  of  the  citizenship  of  the 
negro.  For  one,  I  am  opposed  to  negro  citizenship  in  any  and 
every  form.  I  believe  this  government  was  made  on  the  white 
basis.  I  believe  it  was  made  by  white  men,  for  the  benefit  of 
white  men  and  their  posterity  forever ;  and  I  am  in  favor  of 
confining  citizenship  to  white  men,  men  of  European  birth  and 
descent,  instead  of  conferring  it  upon  negroes,  Indians,  and 
other  inferior  races. 

Mr.  Lincoln,  following  the  example  and  lead  of  all  the  little 
Abolition  orators  who  go  around  and  lecture  in  the  basements 
of  schools  and  churches,  reads  from  the  Declaration  of  Inde- 


IO 

pendence  that  all  men  were  created  equal,  and  then  asks  how 
can  you  deprive  a  negro  of  that  equality  which  God  and  the 
Declaration  of  Independence  award  to  him  ?  He  and  they 
maintain  that  negro  equality  is  guaranteed  by  the  laws  of  God, 
and  that  it  is  asserted  in  the  Declaration  of  Independence. 
If  they  think  so,  of  course  they  have  a  right  to  say  so,  and  so 
vote.  I  do  not  question  Mr.  Lincoln's  conscientious  belief 
that  the  negro  was  made  his  equal,  and  hence  is  his  brother ; 
but,  for  my  own  part,  I  do  not  regard  the  negro  as  my  equal, 
and  positively  deny  that  he  is  my  brother  or  any  kin  to  me 
whatever.  Lincoln  has  evidently  learned  by  heart  Parson 
Lovejoy's  catechism.  He  can  repeat  it  as  well  as  Farnsworth, 
and  he  is  worthy  of  a  medal  from  Father  Giddirigs  and  Fred 
Douglass  for  his  Abolitionism.  He  holds  that  the  negro  was 
born  his  equal  and  yours,  and  that  he  was  endowed  with 
equality  by  the  Almighty,  and  that  no  human  law  can  deprive 
him  of  these  rights  which  were  guaranteed  to  him  by  the 
Supreme  Ruler  of  the  universe.  Now  I  do  not  believe  that 
the  Almighty  ever  intended  the  negro  to  be  the  equal  of  the 
white  man.  If  he  did,  he  has  been  a  long  time  demonstrating 
the  fact.  For  thousands  of  years  the  negro  has  been  a  race 
upon  the  earth;  and  during  all  that  time,  in  all  latitudes  and 
climates,  wherever  he  has  wandered  or  been  taken,  he  has 
been  inferior  to  the  race  which  he  has  there  met.  He  belongs 
to  an  inferior  race,  and  must  always  occupy  an  inferior  posi- 
tion. I  do  not  hold  that,  because  the  negro  is  our  inferior, 
therefore  he  ought  to  be  a  slave.  By  no  means  can  such  a 
conclusion  be  drawn  from  what  I  have  said.  On  the  contrary, 
I  hold  that  humanity  and  Christianity  both  require  that  the 
negro  shall  have  and  enjoy  every  right,  every  privilege,  and 
every  immunity  consistent  with  the  safety  of  the  society  in 
which  he  lives.  On  that  point,  I  presume,  there  can  be  no 
diversity  of  opinion.  You  and  I  are  bound  to  extend  to  our 
inferior  and  dependent  beings  every  right,  every  privilege, 
every  facility  and  immunity  consistent  with  the  public  good. 
The  question  then  arises,  What  rights  and  privileges  are 
consistent  with  the  public  good?  This  is  a  question  which 
each  State  and  each  Territory  must  decide  for  itself.  Illinois 
has  decided  it  for  herself.  We  have  provided  that  the  negro 
shall  not  be  a  slave  ;  and  we  have  also  provided  that  he  shall 
not  be  a  citizen,  but  protect  him  in  his  civil  rights,  in  his  life, 
his  person,  and  his  property,  only  depriving  him  of  all  politi- 


1 1 

cal  rights  whatsoever,  and  refusing  to  put  him  on  an  equality 
with  the  white  man.  That  policy  of  Illinois  is  satisfactory 
to  the  Democratic  party  and  to  me,  and,  if  it  were  to  the 
Republicans,  there  would  then  be  no  question  upon  the  sub- 
ject ;  but  the  Republicans  say  that  he  ought  to  be  made  a 
citizen,  and,  when  he  becomes  a  citizen,  he  becomes  your 
equal,  with  all  your  rights  and  privileges.  They  assert  the 
Dred  Scott  decision  to  be  monstrous  because  it  denies  that 
the  negro  is  or  can  be  a  citizen  under  the  Constitution. 

Now  I  hold  that  Illinois  had  a  right  to  abolish  and  prohibit 
slavery  as  she  did,  and  I  hold  that  Kentucky  has  the  same 
right  to  continue  and  protect  slavery  that  Illinois  had  to 
abolish  it.  I  hold  that  New  York  had  as  much  right  to 
abolish  slavery  as  Virginia  has  to  continue  it,  and  that  each 
and  every  State  of  this  Union  is  a  sovereign  power,  with  the 
right  to  do  as  it  pleases  upon  this  question  of  slavery  and  upon 
all  its  domestic  institutions.  Slavery  is  not  the  only  question 
which  comes  up  in  this  controversy.  There  is  a  far  more 
important  one  to  you  ;  and  that  is,  What  shall  be  done  with  the 
free  negro  ?  We  have  settled  the  slavery  question  as  far  as  we 
are  concerned  :  we  have  prohibited  it  in  Illinois  forever,  and,  in 
doing  so,  I  think  we  have  done  wisely,  and  there  is  no  man  in 
the  State  who  would  be  more  strenuous  in  his  opposition  to  the 
introduction  of  slavery  than  I  would ;  but,  when  we  settled  it 
for  ourselves,  we  exhausted  all  our  power  over  that  subject. 
We  have  done  our  whole  duty,  and  can  do  no  more.  We 
must  leave  each  and  every  other  State  to  decide  for  itself  the 
same  question.  In  relation  to  the  policy  to  be  pursued  toward 
the  free  negroes,  we  have  said  that  they  shall  not  vote ;  whilst 
Maine,  on  the  other  hand,  has  said  that  they  shall  vote.  Maine 
is  a  sovereign  State,  and  has  the  power  to  regulate  the  quali- 
fications of  voters  within  her  limits.  I  would  never  consent  to 
confer  the  right  of  voting  and  of  citizenship  upon  a  negro,  but 
still  I  am  not  going  to  quarrel  with  Maine  for  differing  from  me 
in  opinion.  Let  Maine  take  care  of  her  own  negroes,  and  fix 
the  qualifications  of  her  own  voters  to  suit  herself,  without 
interfering  with  Illinois ;  and  Illinois  will  not  interfere  with 
Maine.  So  with  the  State  of  New  York.  She  allows  the 
negro  to  vote  provided  he  owns  two  hundred  and  fifty  dollars' 
worth  of  property,  but  not  otherwise.  While  I  would  not  make 
any  distinction  whatever  between  a  negro  who  held  property 
and  one  who  did  not,  yet,  if  the  sovereign  State  of  New  York 


12 

chooses  to  make  that  distinction,  it  is  her  business,  and  not 
mine ;  and  I  will  not  quarrel  with  her  for  it.  She  can  do  as 
she  pleases  on  this  question  if  she  minds  her  own  business, 
and  we  will  do  the  same  thing.  Now,  my  friends,  if  we  will 
only  act  conscientiously  and  rigidly  upon  this  great  principle 
of  popular  sovereignty,  which  guarantees  to  each  State  and 
Territory  the  right  to  do  as  it  pleases  on  all  things  local  and 
domestic,  instead  of  Congress  interfering,  we  will  continue  at 
peace  one  with  another.  Why  should  Illinois  be  at  war  with 
Missouri,  or  Kentucky  with  Ohio,  or  Virginia  with  New  York, 
merely  because  their  institutions  differ  ?  Our  fathers  intended 
that  our  institutions  should  differ.  They  knew  that  the  North 
and  the  South,  having  different  climates,  productions,  and 
interests,  required  different  institutions.  This  doctrine  of  Mr. 
Lincoln,  of  uniformity  among  the  institutions  of  the  different 
States,  is  a  new  doctrine,  never  dreamed  of  by  Washington, 
Madison,  or  the  framers  of  this  government.  Mr.  Lincoln  and 
the  Republican  party  set  themselves  up  as  wiser  than  these 
men  who  made  this  government,  which  has  flourished  for 
seventy  years  under  the  principle  of  popular  sovereignty, 
recognizing  the  right  of  each  State  to  do  as  it  pleased.  Under 
that  principle,  we  have  grown  from  a  nation  of  three  or  four 
millions  to  a  nation  of  about  thirty  millions  of  people.  We  have 
crossed  the  Alleghany  mountains  and  filled  up  the  whole  North- 
west, turning  the  prairie  into  a  garden,  and  building  up  churches 
and  schools,  thus  spreading  civilization  and  Christianity  where 
before  there  was  nothing  but  savage  barbarism.  Under  that 
principle  we  have  become,  from  a  feeble  nation,  the  most 
powerful  on  the  face  of  the  earth ;  and,  if  we  only  adhere  to 
that  principle,  we  can  go  forward  increasing  in  'territory,  in 
power,  in  strength,  and  in  glory  until  the  Republic  of  America 
shall  be  the  north  star  that  shall  guide  the  friends  of  freedom 
throughout  the  civilized  world.  And  why  can  we  not  adhere  to 
the  great  principle  of  self-government  upon  which  our  institu- 
tions were  originally  based  ?  I  believe  that  this  new  doctrine 
preached  by  Mr.  Lincoln  and  his  party  will  dissolve  the  Union 
if  it  succeeds.  They  are  trying  to  array  all  the  Northern 
States  in  one  body  against  the  South,  to  excite  a  sectional  war 
between  the  free  States  and  the  slave  States,  in  order  that  the 
one  or  the  other  may  be  driven  to  the  wall. 


MR.  LINCOLN'S  REPLY. 

My  Felloiv-ritizens, —  When  a  man  hears  himself  somewhat 
misrepresented,  it  provokes  him, —  at  least,  I  find  it  so  with 
myself;  but,  when  misrepresentation  become  very  gross  and 
palpable,  it  is  more  apt  to  amuse  him.  The  first  thing  I  see 
fit  to  notice  is  the  fact  that  Judge  Douglas  alleges,  after  run- 
ning through  the  history  of  the  old  Democratic  and  the  old 
Whig  parties,  that  Judge  Trumbull  and  myself  made  an. 
arrangement  in  1854  by  which  I  was  to  have  the  place  of 
General  Shields  in  the  United  States  Senate,  and  Judge  Trum- 
bull was  to  have  the  place  of  Judge  Douglas.  Now  all  I  have 
to  say  upon  that  subject  is  that  I  think  no  man  —  not  even 
Judge  Douglas  —  can  prove  it,  because  it  is  not  true.  I  have 
no  doubt  he  is  "conscientious  ",  in  ^saying  it.  As  to  those 
resolutions  that  he  took  such  a  length  of  time  to  read,  as  being 
the  platform  of  the  Republican  party  in  1854,  I  say  I  never 
had  anything  to  do  with  them ;  and  I  think  Trumbull  never 
had.  Judge  Douglas  cannot  show  that  either  of  us  ever  did 
have  anything  to  do  with  them.  I  believe  this  is  true  about 
those  resolutions.  There  was  a  call  for  a  convention  to  form 
a  Republican  party  at  Springfield ;  and  I  think  that  my  friend 
Mr.  Lovejoy,  who  is  here  upon  this  stand,  had  a  hand  in  it. 
I  think  this  is  true  ;  and  I  think,  if  he  will  remember  accurately, 
he  will  be  able  to  recollect  that  he  tried  to  get  me  into  it,  and 
I  would  not  go  in.  I  believe  it  is  also  true  that  I  went 
away  from  Springfield,  when  the  convention  was  in  session, 
to  attend  court  in  Tazewell  County.  It  is  true  they  did  place 
my  name,  though  without  authority,  upon  the  committee,  and 
afterward  wrote  me  to  attend  the  meeting  of  the  committee ; 
but  I  refused  to  do  so,  and  I  never  had  anything  to  do  with 
that  organization.  This  is  the  plain  truth  about  all  that 
matter  of  the  resolutions. 

Now,  about  this  story  that  Judge  Douglas  tells  of  Trumbull 
bargaining  to  sell  out  the  old  Democratic  party,  and  Lincoln 
agreeing  to  sell  out  the  Old  Whig  party,  I  have  the  means  of 
knowing  about  that :  Judge  Douglas  cannot  have ;  and  I  know 
there  is 'no  substance  to  it  whatever.  Yet  I  have  no  doubt  he 
is  "conscientious"  about  it.  I  know  that,  after  Mr.  Lovejoy 
got  into  the  legislature  that  winter,  he  complained  of  me  that 
I  had  told  all  the  Old  Whigs  of  his  district  that  the  Old  Whig 


party  was  good  enough  for  them,  and  some  of  them  voted 
against  him  because  I  told  them  so.  Now  I  have  no  means 
of  totally  disproving  such  charges  as  this  which  the  judge 
makes.  A  man  cannot  prove  a  negative ;  but  he  has  a  right 
to  claim  that,  when  a  man  makes  an  affirmative  charge,  he 
must  offer  some  proof  to  show  the  truth  of  what  he  says. 
I  certainly  cannot  introduce  testimony  to  show  the  negative 
about  things  ;  but  I  have  a  right  to  claim  that,  if  a  man  says  he 
knows  a  thing,  then  he  must  show  how  he  knows  it.  I  always 
have  a  right  to  claim  this,  and  it  is  not  satisfactory  to  me  that 
he  may  be  "conscientious"  on  the  subject. 

Now,  gentlemen,  I  hate  to  waste  my  time  on  such  things,  but 
in  regard  to  that  general  Abolition  tilt  that  Judge  Douglas 
makes  when  he  says  that  I  was  engaged  at  that  time  in  selling 
out  and  Abolitionizing  the  Old  Whig  party,  I  hope  you  will 
permit  me  to  read  a  part  of  a  printed  speech  that  I  made  then 
at  Peoria,  which  will  show  altogether  a  different  view  of  the 
position  I  took  in  that  contest  of  1854.  [Voice  :  "  Put  on  your 
specs."]  Yes,  sir,  I  am  obliged  to  do  so.  I  am  no  longer  a 
young  man. 

This  is  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise.  The  foregoing  history 
may  not  be  precisely  accurate  in  every  particular;  but  I  am  sure  it  is 
sufficiently  so  for  all  the  uses  I  shall  attempt  to  make  of  it,  and  in  it  we 
have  before  us  the  chief  materials  enabling  us  to  correctly  judge  whether 
the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise  is  right  or -wrong. 

I  think,  and  shall  try  to  show,  that  it  is  wrong, — wrong  in  its  direct  effect, 
—  letting  slavery  into  Kansas  and  Nebraska, — rand  wrong  in  its  prospective 
principle, —  allowing  it  to  spread  to  every  other  part  of  the  wide  world 
where  men  can  be  found  inclined  to  take  it. 

This  declared  indifference,  but,  as  I  must  think,  covert  real  zeal  for  the 
spread  of  slavery,  I  cannot  but  hate.  I  hate  it  because  of  the  monstrous 
injustice  of  slavery  itself.  I  hate  it  because  it  deprives  our  republican 
example  of  its  just  influence  in  the  world  ;  enables  the  enemies  of  free  in- 
stitutions, with  plausibility,  to  taunt  us  as  hypocrites ;  causes  the  real 
friends  of  freedom  to  doubt  our  sincerity,  and  especially  because  it  forces 
so  many  really  good  men  amongst  ourselves  into  an  open  war  with  the 
very  fundamental  principles  of  civil  liberty, —  criticising  the  Declaration  of 
Independence,  and  insisting  that  there  is  no  right  principle  of  action  but 
self-interest. 

Before  proceeding,  let  me  say  I  think  I  have  no  prejudice  against  the 
Southern  people.  They  are  just  what  we  would  be  in  their  situation.  If 
slavery  did  not  now  exist  among  them,  they  would  not  introduce  it.  If  it 
did  now  exist  among  us,  we  should  not  instantly  give  it  up.  This  I  believe 
of  the  masses  North  and  South.  Doubtless  there  are  individuals  on  both 
sides  who  would  not  hold  slaves  under  any  circumstances  ;  and  others  who 
would  gladly  introduce  slavery  anew,  if  it  were  out  of  existence.  We  know 
that  some  Southern  men  do  free  their  slaves,  go  North,  and  become  tip-top 


15 

Abolitionists ;  while  some  Northern  ones  go  South,  and  become  most  cruel 
slave-masters. 

When  Southern  people  tell  us  they  are  no  more  responsible  for  the  origin 
of  slavery  than  we,  I  acknowledge  the  fact.  When  it  is  said  that  the  insti- 
tution exists,  and  that  it  is  very  difficult  to  get  rid  of  it  in  any  satisfactory 
•way,  I  can  understand  and  appreciate  the  saying.  I  surely  will  not  blame 
them  for  not  doing  what  I  should  not  know  how  to  do  myself.  If  all 
earthly  power  were  given  me,  I  should  not  know  what  to  do  as  to  the 
existing  institution.  My  first  impulse  would  be  to  free  all  the  slaves,  and 
send  them  to  Liberia, —  to  their  own  native  land.  But  a  moment's  reflection 
would  convince  me  that,  whatever  of  high  hope  (as  I  think  there  is)  there 
may  be  in  this  in  the  long  run,  its  sudden  execution  is  impossible.  If  they 
were  all  landed  there  in  a  day,  they  would  all  perish  in  the  next  ten  days; 
and  there  are  not  surplus  shipping  and  surplus  money  enough  in  the  world 
to  carry  them  there  in  many  times  ten  days.  What  then?  Free  them  all, 
and  keep  them  among  us  as  underlings  ?  Is  it  quite  certain  that  this  betters 
their  condition  ?  I  think  I  would  not  hold  one  in  slavery,  at  any  rate  ;  yet 
the  point  is  not  clear  enough  to  me  to  denounce  people  upon.  What  next  ? 
Free  them,  and  make  them  politically  and  socially  our  equals  ?  My  own 
feelings  will  not  admit  of  this;  and,  if  mine  would,  we  well  know  that  those 
of  the  great  mass  of  white  people  will  not.  Whether  this  feeling  accords 
with  justice  and  sound  judgment  is  not  the  sole  question,  if,  indeed,  it  is  any 
part  of  it.  A  universal  feeling,  whether  well  or  ill  founded,  cannot  be  safely 
disregarded.  We  cannot  make  them  equals.  It  does  seem  to  me  that 
systems  of  gradual  emancipation  might  be  adopted ;  but,  for  their  tardiness 
in  this,  I  will  not  undertake  to  judge  our  brethren  of  the  South. 

When  they  remind  us  of  their  constitutional  rights,  I  acknowledge  them, 
not  grudgingly,  but  fully  and  fairly  ;  and  I  would  give  them  any  legislation 
for  the  reclaiming  of  their  fugitives  which  should  not,  in  its  stringency,  be 
more  likely  to  carry  a  free  man  into  slavery  than  our  ordinary  criminal  laws 
are  to  hang  an  innocent  one. 

But  all  this,  to  my  judgment,  furnishes  no  more  excuse  for  permitting 
slavery  to  go  into  our  own  free  territory  than  it  would  for  reviving  the 
African  slave-trade  by  law.  The  law  which  forbids  the  bringing  of  slaves 
from  Africa,  and  that  which  has  so  long  forbidden  the  taking  of  them  to 
Nebraska,  can  hardly  be  distinguished  on  any  moral  principle ;  and  the 
repeal  of  the  former  could  find  quite  as  plausible  excuses  as  that  of  the  latter. 

I  have  reason  to  know  that  Judge  Douglas  knows  that  I  said 
this.  I  think  he  has  the  answer  here  to  one  of  the  questions 
he  put  to  me.  I  do  not  mean  to  allow  him  to  catechise  me 
unless  he  pays  back  for  it  in  kind.  I  will  not  answer  ques- 
tions one  after  another,  unless  he  reciprocates ;  but  as  he 
has  made  this  inquiry,  and  I  have  answered  it  before,  he  has 
got  it  without  my  getting  anything  in  return.  He  has  got  my 
answer  on  the  fugitive-slave  law. 

Now,  gentlemen,  I  don't  want  to  read  at  any  great  length ;  but 
this  is  the  true  complexion  of  all  I  have  ever  said  in  regard 
to  the  institution  of  slavery  and  the  black  race.  This  is  the 


i6 

whole  of  it ;  and  anything  that  argues  me  into  his  idea  of  per- 
fect social  and  political  equality  with  the  negro  is  but  a 
specious  and  fantastic  arrangement  of  words,  by  which  a  man 
can  prove  a  horse-chestnut  to  be  a  chestnut  horse.  I  will  say 
here,  while  upon  this  subject,  that  I  have  no  purpose,  either 
directly  or  indirectly,  to  interfere  with  the  institution  of  slavery 
in  the  States  where  it  exists.  I  believe  I  have  no  lawful  right 
to  do  so,  and  I  have  no  inclination  to  do  so.  I  have  no  pur- 
pose to  introduce  political  and  social  equality  between  the 
white  and  the  black  races.  There  is  a  physical  difference 
between  the  two,  which,  in  my  judgment,  will  probably  forever 
forbid  their  living  together  upon  the  footing  of  perfect 
equality ;  and,  inasmuch  as  it  becomes  a  necessity  that  there 
must  be  a  difference,  I,  as  well  as  Judge  Douglas,  am  in  favor 
of  the  race  to  which  I  belong  having  the  superior  position. 
I  have  never  said  anything  to  the  contrary,  but  I  hold  that, 
notwithstanding  all  this,  there  is  no  reason  in  the  world  why 
the  negro  is  not  entitled  to  all  the  natural  rights  enumerated 
in  the  Declaration  of  Independence, —  the  right  to  life,  liberty, 
and  the  pursuit  of  happiness.  I  hold  that  he  is  as  much  en- 
titled to  these  as  the  white  man.  I  agree  with  Judge  Douglas 
he  is  not  my  equal  in  many  respects, —  certainly  not  in  color, 
perhaps  not  in  moral  or  intellectual  endowment.  But  in  the 
right  to  eat  the  bread,  without  the  leave  of  anybody  else,  which 
his  own  hand  earns,  he  is  my  equal  and  the  equal  of  Judge 
Douglas,  and  the  equal  of  every  living  man. 

Now  I  pass  on  to  consider  one  or  two  more  of  these  little 
follies.  The  judge  is  wofully  at  fault  about  his  early  friend 
Lincoln  being  a  "grocery-keeper."  I  donrt  think  that  it 
would  be  a  great  sin  if  I  had  been  ;  but  he  is  mistaken.  Lin- 
coln never  kept  a  grocery  anywhere  in  the  world.  It  is  true 
that  Lincoln  did  work  the  latter  part  of  one  winter  in  a  little 
still-house  up  at  the  head  of  a  hollow.  And  so  I  think  my 
friend,  the  judge,  is  equally  at  fault  when  he  charges  me  at  the 
time  when  I  was  in  Congress  of  having  opposed  our  soldiers 
who  were  fighting  in  the  Mexican  war.  The  judge  did  not 
make  his  charge  very  distinctly ;  but  I  tell  you  what  he  can 
prove,  by  referring  to  the  record.  You  remember  I  was  an 
Old  Whig;  and,  whenever  the  Democratic  party  tried  to  get 
me  to  vote  that  the  war  had  been  righteously  begun  by  the 
President,  I  would  not  do  it.  But,  whenever  they  asked  for 
any  money  or  land-warrants  or  anything  to  pay  the  soldiers  there, 


during  all  that  time,  I  gave  the  same  vote  that  Judge  Douglas 
did.  You  can  think  as  you  please  as  to  whether  that  was 
consistent.  Such  is  the  truth  ;  and  the  judge  has  the  right  to- 
make  all  he  can  out  of  it.  But  when  he,  by  a  general  charge, 
conveys  the  idea  that  I  withheld  supplies  from  the  soldiers 
who  were  fighting  in  the  Mexican  war,  or  did  anything  else  to 
hinder  the  soldiers,  he  is,  to  say  the  least,  grossly  and  alto- 
gether mistaken,  as  a  consultation  of  the  records  will  prove  to 
him. 

As  I  have  not  used  up  so  much  of  my  time  as  I  had  sup- 
posed, I  will  dwell  a  little  longer  upon  one  or  two  of  these 
minor  topics  upon  which  the  judge  has  spoken.  He  has  read 
from  my  speech  in  Springfield  in  which  I  say  that  "  a  house 
divided  against  itself  cannot  stand."  Does  the  judge  say  it 
can  stand  ?  I  don't  know  whether  he  does  or  not.  The  judge 
does  not  seem  to  be  attending  to  me  just  now,  but  I  would  like 
to  know  if  it  is  his  opinion  that  a  house  divided  against  itself 
can  stand.  If  he  does,  then  there  is  a  question  of  veracity, 
not  between  him  and  me,  but  between  the  judge  and  an 
authority  of  a  somewhat  higher  character. 

Now,  my  friends,  I  ask  your  attention  to  this  matter  for  the 
purpose  of  saying  something  seriously.  I  know  that  the  judge 
may  readily  enough  agree  with  me  that  the  maxim  which  was 
put  forth  by  the  Saviour  is  true,  but  he  may  allege  that  I  mis- 
apply it ;  and  the  judge  has  a  right  to  urge  that  in  my  applica- 
tion I  do  misapply  it,  and  then  I  have  a  right  to  show  that  I 
do  not  misapply  it.  When  he  undertakes  to  say  that  because 
I  think  this  nation,  so  far  as  the  question  of  slavery  is  con- 
cerned, will  all  become  one  thing  or  all  the  other,  I  am  in 
favor  of  bringing  about  a  dead  uniformity  in  the  various  States 
in  all  their  institutions,  he  argues  erroneously.  The  great 
variety  of  the  local  institutions  in  the  States,  springing  from 
differences  in  the  soil,  differences  in  the  face  of  the  country, 
and  in  the  climate,  are  bonds  of  union.  They  do  not  make  "  a 
house  divided  against  itself,"  but  they  make  a  house  united. 
If  they  produce  in  one  section  of  the  country  what  is  called 
for  by  the  wants  of  another  section,  and  this  other  section  can 
supply  the  wants  of  the  first,  they  are  not  matters  of  discord, 
but  bonds  of  union, —  true  bonds  of  union.  But  can  this  ques- 
tion of  slavery  be  considered  as  among  these  varieties  in  the 
institutions  of  the  country  ?  I  leave  it  to  you  to  say  whether, 
in  the  history  of  our  government,  this  institution  of  slavery  has 


i8 

not  always  failed  to  be  a  bond  of  union,  and,  on  the  contrary, 
been  an  apple  of  discord  and  an  element  of  division  in  the 
house.  I  ask  you  to  consider  whether,  so  long  as  the  moral 
constitution  of  men's  minds  shall  continue  to  be  the  same, 
after  this  generation  and  assemblage  shall  sink  into  the  grave, 
and  another  race  shall  arise  with  the  same  moral  and  intellect- 
ual development  we  have, —  whether,  if  that  institution  is 
standing  in  the  same  irritating  position  in  which  it  now  is,  it 
will  not  continue  an  element  of  division  ? 

If  so,  then  I  have  a  right  to  say  that,  in  regard  to  this  ques- 
tion, the  Union  is  a  house  divided  against  itself;  and  when 
the  judge  reminds  me  that  I  have  often  said  to  him  that  the 
institution  of  slavery  has  existed  for  eighty  years  in  some 
States,  and  yet  it  does  not  exist  in  some  others,  I  agree  to  the 
fact,  and  I  account  for  it  by  looking  at  the  position  in  which 
our  fathers  originally  placed  it, —  restricting  it  from  the  new 
Territories  where  it  had  not  gone,  and  legislating  to  cut  off  its 
source  by  the  abrogation  of  the  slave-trade,  thus  putting  the 
seal  of  legislation  against  its  spread.  The  public  mind  did 
rest  in  the  belief  that  it  was  in  the  course  of  ultimate  extinction. 
But  lately,  I  think, —  and  in  this  I  charge  nothing  on  the 
judge's  motives, —  lately,  I  think  that  he,  and  those  acting 
with  him,  have  placed  that  institution  on  a  new  basis,  which 
looks  to  the  perpetuity  and  nationalization  of  slavery.  And, 
while  it  is  placed  upon  this  new  basis,  I  say,  and  I  have  said, 
that  I  believe  we  shall  not  have  peace- upon  the  question  until 
the  opponents  of  slavery  arrest  the  further  spread  of  it,  and 
place  it  where  the  public  mind  shall  rest  in  the  belief  that  it  is 
in  the  course  of  ultimate  extinction  ;  or,  on  the  other  hand,  that 
its  advocates  will  push  it  forward  until  it  shall  become  alike 
lawful  in  all  the  States,  old  as  well  as  new,  North  as  well  as 
South.  Now  I  believe,  if  we  could  arrest  the  spread,  and  place 
it  where  Washington  and  Jefferson  and  Madison  placed  it,  it 
would  be  in  the  course  of  ultimate  extinction,  and  the  public 
mind  would,  as  for  eighty  years  past,  believe  that  it  was  in  the 
course  of  ultimate  extinction.  The  crisis  would  be  past,  and 
the  institution  might  be  let  alone  for  a  hundred  years  —  if  it 
should  live  so  long  —  in  the  States  where  it  exists,  yet  it  would 
be  going  out  of  existence  in  the  way  best  for  both  the  black 
and  the  white  races.  [A  voice :  "  Then  do  you  repudiate 
popular  sovereignty?"]  Well,  then,  let  us  talk  about  popular 
sovereignty  !  What  is  popular  sovereignty  ?  Is  it  the  right  of 


19 

the  people  to  have  slavery  or  not  have  it,  as  they  see  fit,  in  the 
Territories  ?  I  will  state  —  and  I  have  an  able  man  to  watch 
me  —  my  understanding  is  that  popular  sovereignty,  as  now 
applied  to  the  question  of  slavery,  does  allow  the  people  of  a 
Territory  to  have  slavery  if  they  want  to,  but  does  not  allow 
them  not  to  have  it  if  they  do  not  want  it.  I  do  not  mean  that, 
if  this  vast  concourse  of  people  were  in  a  Territory  of  the 
United  States,  any  one  of  them  would  be  obliged  to  have  a 
slave  if  he  did  not  want  one ;  but  I  do  say  that,  as  I  under- 
stand the  Dred  Scott  decision,  if  any  one  man  wants  slaves,  all 
the  rest  have  no  way  of  keeping  that  one  man  from  holding 
them. 

When  I  made  my  speech  at  Springfield,  of  which  the  judge 
complains,  and  from  which  he  quotes,  I  really  was  not  think- 
ing of  the  things  which  he  ascribes  to  me  at  all.  I  had  no 
thought  in  the  world  that  I  was  doing  anything  to  bring  about 
a  war  between  the  free  and  slave  States.  I  had  no  thought 
in  the  world  that  I  was  doing  anything  to  bring  about  a  politi- 
cal and  social  equality  of  the  black  and  white  races.  It  never 
occurred  to  me  that  I  was  doing  anything  or  favoring  anything 
to  reduce  to  a  dead  uniformity  all  the  local  institutions  of  the 
various  States.  But  I  must  say,  in  all  fairness  to  him,  if  he 
thinks  I  am  doing  something  which  leads  to  these  bad  results, 
it  is  none  the  better  that  I  did  not  mean  it.  It  is  just  as  fatal 
to  the  country,  if  I  have  any  influence  in  producing  it,  whether 
I  intend  it  or  not.  But  can  it  be  true  that  placing  this  insti- 
tution upon  the  original  basis  —  the  basis  upon  which  our 
fathers  placed  it  —  can  have  any  tendency  to  set  the  Northern 
and  the  Southern  States  at  war  with  one  another,  or  that  it  can 
have  any  tendency  to  make  the  people  of  Vermont  raise  sugar- 
cane because  they  raise  it  in  Louisiana,  or  that  it  can  compel 
the  people  of  Illinois  to  cut  pine  logs  on  the  Grand  prairie, 
where  they  will  not  grow,  because  they  cut  pine  logs  in  Maine, 
where  they  do  grow  ?  The  judge  says  this  is  a  new  principle 
started  in  regard  to  this  question.  Does  the  judge  claim  that 
he  is  working  on  the  plan  of  the  founders  of  the  government  ? 
I  think  he  says  in  some  of  his  speeches  —  indeed,  I  have  one 
here  now  —  that  he  saw  evidence  of  a  policy  to  allow  slavery  to 
be  south  of  a  certain  line,  while  north  of  it  it  should  be  ex- 
cluded ;  and  he  saw  an  indisposition  on  the  part  of  the  country 
to  stand  upon  that  policy,  and  therefore  he  set  about  studying 
the  subject  upon  original  principles,  and  upon  original  princi- 


20 

pies  he  got  up  the  Nebraska  bill !  I  am  fighting  it  upon 
these  "original  principles," — fighting  it  in  the  Jeffersonian, 
Washingtonian,  and  Madisonian  fashion. 

Now,  my  friends,  I  wish  you  to  attend  for  a  little  while  to 
one  or  two  other  things  in  that  Springfield  speech.  My  main 
object  was  to  show,  so  far  as  my  humble  ability  was  capable 
of  showing  to  the  people  of  this  country,  what  I  believed  was 
the  truth, —  that  there  was  a  tendency,  if  not  a  conspiracy, 
among  those  who  have  engineered  this  slavery  question  for  the 
last  four  or  five  years,  to  make  slavery  perpetual  and  universal 
in  this  nation.  Having  made  that  speech  principally  for  that 
object,  after  arranging  the  evidences  that  I  thought  tended  to- 
prove  my  proposition,  I  concluded  with  this  bit  of  comment :  — 

We  cannot  absolutely  know  that  these  exact,  adaptations  are  the  result 
of  pre-concert ;  but,  when  we  see  a  lot  of  framed  timbers,  different  portions 
of  which  we  know  have  been  gotten  out  at  different  times  and  places,  and 
by  different  workmen, —  Stephen,  Franklin,  Roger,  and  James,  for  instance, 

—  and  when  we  see  these  timbers  joined  together,  and   see  they  exactly 
make  the  frame  of  a  house  or  a  mill,  all  the  tenons  and  mortises  exactly  fit- 
ting, and   all  the  lengths  and  proportions  of  the  different  pieces  exactly 
adapted  to  their  respective  places,  and  not  a  piece  too  many  or  too  few, — 
not  omitting  even  the  scaffolding, — or  if  a  single  piece  be  lacking,  we  see 
the  place  in  the  frame  exactly  fitted  and  prepared  to  yet  bring  such  piece  in, 

—  in  such  a  case  we  feel  it  impossible  not  to  believe  that  Stephen  and 
Franklin,  and  Roger  and  James,  all    understood    one   another  from   the 
beginning,  and  all  worked  upon  a  common  plan  or  draft  drawn  before  the 
first  blow  was  struck. 

When  my  friend,  Judge  Douglas,  came  to  Chicago  on  the 
gth  of  July,  this  speech  having  been  delivered  on  the  i6th  of 
June,  he  made  an  harangue  there  in  which  he  took  hold  of  this 
speech  of  mine,  showing  that  he  had  carefully  read  it;  and, 
while  he  paid  no  attention  to  this  matter  at  all,  but  complimented 
me  as  being  a  "kind,  amiable,  and  intelligent  gentleman,"  not- 
withstanding I  had  said  this,  he  goes  on  and  deduces,  or  draws 
out,  from  my  speech  this  tendency  of  mine  to  set  the  States  at 
war  with  one  another,  to  make  all  the  institutions  uniform,  and 
set  the  niggers  and  white  people  to  marry  together.  Then,  as 
the  judge  had  complimented  me  with  these  pleasant  titles  (I 
must  confess  to  my  weakness),  I  was  a  little  "taken";  for  it 
came  trom  a  great  man.  I  was  not  very  much  accustomed  to 
flattery,  and  it  came  the  sweeter  to  me.  I  was  rather  like  the 
Hoosier  with  the  gingerbread,  when  he  said  he  reckoned  he 
loved  it  better  than  any  other  man,  and  got  less  of  it.  As  the 


21 

judge  had  so  flattered  me,  I  could  not  make  up  my  mind  that 
he  meant  to  deal  unfairly  with  me.  So  I  went  to  work  to  show 
him  that  he  misunderstood  the  whole  scope  of  my  speech,  and 
that  I  really  never  intended  to  set  the  people  at  war  with  one 
another.  As  an  illustration,  the  next  time  I  met  him,  which 
was  at  Springfield,  I  used  this  expression,  that  I  claimed  no 
right  under  the  Constitution,  nor  had  I  any  inclination,  to 
enter  into  the  slave  States  and  interfere  with  the  institutions  of 
slavery.  He  says  upon  that,  Lincoln  will  not  enter  into  the 
slave  States,  but  will  go  to  the  banks  of  the  Ohio,  on  this  side, 
and  shoot  over  !  He  runs  on,  step  by  step,  in  the  horse-chestnut 
style  of  argument,  until  in  the  Springfield  speech  he  says,  "  Un- 
less he  shall  be  successful  in  firing  his  batteries  until  he  shall 
have  extinguished  slavery  in  all  the  States,  the  Union  shall  be 
dissolved."  Now  I  don't  think  that  was  exactly  the  way  to  treat 
"a  kind,  amiable,  intelligent  gentleman."  I  know,  if  I -had 
asked  the  judge  to  show  when  or  where  it  was  I  had 
said  that,  if  I  didn't  succeed  in  firing  into  the  slave  States 
until  slavery  should  be  extinguished,  the  Union  should  be 
dissolved,  he  could  not  have  shown  it.  I  understand  what 
he  would  do.  He  would  say,  "  I  don't  mean  to  quote  from 
you,  but  this  was  the  result  of  what  you  say."  But  I  have  the 
right  to  ask,  and  I  do  ask  now,  Did  you  not  put  it  in  such 
a  form  that  an  ordinary  reader  or  listener  would  take  it  as  an 
expression  from  me  ? 

In  a  speech  at  Springfield,  on  the  night  of  the  iyth,  I 
thought  I  might  as  well  attend  to  my  business  a  little  ;  and  I 
recalled  his  attention  as  well  as  I  could  to  this  charge  of  con- 
spiracy to  nationalize  slavery.  I  called  his  attention  to  the 
fact  that  he  had  acknowledged  in  my  hearing  twice  that  he 
had  carefully  read  the  speech ;  and,  in  the  language  of  the 
lawyers,  as  he  had  twice  read  the  speech,  and  still  had  put  in 
no  plea  or  answer,  I  took  a  default  on  him.  I  insisted  that 
I  had  a  right  then  to  renew  that  charge  of  conspiracy.  Ten 
days  afterward  I  met  the  judge  at  Clinton, —  that  is  to  say, 
I  was  on  the  ground,  but  not  in  the  discussion, —  and  heard 
him  make  a  speech.  Then  he  comes  in  with  his  plea  to  this 
charge,  for  the  first  time ;  and  his  plea  when  put  in,  as  well 
as  I  can  recollect  it,  amounted  to  this  :  that  he  never  had  any 
talk  with  Judge  Taney  or  the  President  of  the  United  States 
with  regard  to  the  Dred  Scott  decision  before  it  was  made ; 
I  (Lincoln)  ought  to  know  that  the  man  who  makes  a  charge 


22 

without  knowing  it  to  be  true  falsifies  as  much  as  he  who 
knowingly  tells  a  falsehood ;  and,  lastly,  that  he  would  pro- 
nounce the  whole  thing  a  falsehood ;  but  he  would  make  no 
personal  application  of  the  charge  of  falsehood,  not  because 
of  any  regard  for  the  "kind,  amiable,  intelligent  gentleman," 
but  because  of  his  own  personal  self-respect !  I  have  under- 
stood since  then  (but  [turning  to  Judge  Douglas]  will  not  hold 
the  judge  to  it  if  he  is  not  willing)  that  he  has  broken  through 
the  "self-respect,"  and  has  got  to  saying  the  thing  out.  The 
judge  nods  to  me  that  it  is  so.  It  is  fortunate  for  me  that  I 
can  keep  as  good-humored  as  I  do,  when  the  judge  acknowl- 
edges that  he  has  been  trying  to  make  a  question  of  veracity 
with  me.  I  know  the  judge  is  a  great  man,  while  I  am  only 
a  small  man ;  but  I  feel  that  I  have  got  him.  I  demur  to  that 
plea.  I  waive  all  objections  that  it  was  not  filed  till  after 
default  was  taken,  and  demur  to  it  upon  the  merits.  What  if 
Judge  Douglas  never  did  talk  with  Chief  Justice  Taney  and 
the  President  before  the  Dred  Scott  decision  was  made  :  does 
it  follow  that  he  could  not  have  had  as  perfect  an  understand- 
ing without  talking  as  with  it  ?  I  am  not  disposed  to  stand 
upon  my  legal  advantage.  I  am  disposed  to  take  his  denial  as 
being  like  an  answer  in  chancery,  that  he  neither  had  any 
knowledge,  information,  nor  belief  in  the  existence  of  such 
a  conspiracy.  I  am  disposed  to  take  his  answer  as  being  as 
broad  as  though  he  had  put  it  in  these  words.  And  now, 
I  ask,  even  if  he  had  done  so,  have  not  I  a  right  to  prove  it 
on  him,  and  to  offer  the  evidence  of  more  than  two  witnesses, 
by  whom  to  prove  it;  and,  if  the  evidence  proves  the  existence 
of  the  conspiracy,  does  his  broad  answer,  denying  all  knowl- 
edge, information,  or  belief,  disturb  the  fact?  It  can  only 
show  that  he  was  used  by  conspirators,  and  was  not  a  leader 
of  them. 

Now  in  regard  to  his  reminding  me  of  the  moral  rule  that 
persons  who  tell  what  they  do  not  know  to  be  true  falsify  as 
much  as  those  who  knowingly  tell  falsehoods.  I  remember 
the  rule,  and  it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  in  what  I  have  read 
to  you  I  do  not  say  that  I  know  such  a  conspiracy  to  exist. 
To  that  I  reply,  I  believe  it.  If  the  judge  says  that  I  do  not 
believe  it,  then  he  says  what  he  does  not  know,  and  falls 
within  his  own  rule  that  he  who  asserts  a  thing  which  he  does 
not  know  to  be  true  falsifies  as  much  as  he  who  knowingly 
tells  a  falsehood.  I  want  to  call  your  attention  to  a  little 


23 

discussion  on  that  branch  of  the  case,  and  the  evidence  which 
brought  my  mind  to  the  conclusion  which  I  expressed  as  my 
belief.  If,  in  arraying  that  evidence,  I  had  stated  anything 
which  was  false  or  erroneous,  it  needed  but  that  Judge  Douglas 
should  point  it  out,  and  I  would  have  taken  it  back  with  all  the 
kindness  in  the  world.  I  do  not  deal  in  that  way.  If  I  have 
brought  forward  anything  not  a  fact,  if  he  will  point  it  out,  it 
will  not  even  ruffle  me  to  take  it  back.  But,  if  he  will  not  point 
out  anything  erroneous  in  the  evidence,  is  it  not  rather  for  him 
to  show  by  a  comparison  of  the  evidence  that  I  have  reasoned 
falsely  than  to  call  the  "kind,  amiable,  intelligent  gentleman" 
a  liar  ?  If  I  have  reasoned  to  a  false  conclusion,  it  is  the 
vocation  of  an  able  debater  to  show  by  argument  that  I  have 
wandered  to  an  erroneous  conclusion.  I  want  to  ask  your 
attention  to  a  portion  of  the  Nebraska  bill  which  Judge 
Douglas  has  quoted :  "  it  being  the  true  intent  and  meaning  of 
this  act  not  to  legislate  slavery  into  any  Territory  or  State,  nor 
to  exclude  it  therefrom,  but  to  leave  the  people  thereof  per- 
fectly free  to  form  and  regulate  their  domestic  institutions  in 
their  own  way,  subject  only  to  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States."  Thereupon  Judge  Douglas  and  others  began  to  argue 
in  favor  of  "popular  sovereignty," — the  right  of  the  people  to 
have  slaves  if  they  wanted  them,  and  to  exclude  slavery  if  they 
did  not  want  them.  "But,"  said,  in  substance,  a  senator  from 
Ohio  (Mr.  Chase,  I  believe),  "we  more -than  suspect  that  you 
do  not  mean  to  allow  the  people  to  exclude  slavery  if  they  wish 
to ;  and,  if  you  do  mean  it,  accept  an  amendment  which  I  pro- 
pose expressly  authorizing  the  people  to  exclude  slavery."  I 
believe  I  have  the  amendment  here  before  me,  which  was 
offered,  and  under  which  the  people  of  the  Territory,  through 
their  proper  representatives,  might,  if  they  saw  fit,  prohibit  the 
existence  of  slavery  therein.  And  now  I  state  it  as  a  fact,  to 
be  taken  back  if  there  is  any  mistake  about  it,  that  Judge 
Douglas  and  those  acting  with  him  voted  that  amendment 
down.  I  now  think  that  those  men  who  voted  it  down  had  a 
real  reason  for  doing  so.  They  know  what  that  reason  was. 
It  looks  to  us,  since  we  have  seen  the  Dred  Scott  decision  pro- 
nounced, holding  that,  "under  the  Constitution,"  the  people 
cannot  exclude  slavery, —  I  say  it  looks  to  outsiders,  poor, 
simple,  "amiable,  intelligent  gentlemen,"  as  though  the  niche 
was  left  as  a  place  to  put  that  Dred  Scott  decision  in, —  a  niche 
which  would  have  been  spoiled  by  adopting  the  amendment. 


24  .          - 

And  now  I  say  again,  if  this  was  not  the  reason,  it  will  avail 
the  judge  much  more  to  calmly  and  good-humoredly  point  out 
to  these  people  what  that  other  reason  was  for  voting  the 
amendment  down  than  swelling  himself  up  to  vociferate  that 
he  may  be  provoked  to  call  somebody  a  liar. 

Again,  there  is  in  that  same  quotation  from  the  Nebraska 
bill  this  clause :  "  it  being  the  true  intent  and  meaning  of  this 
bill  not  to  legislate  slavery  into  any  Territory  or  State."  I 
have  always  been  puzzled  to  know  what  business  the  word 
"  State  "  had  in  that  connection.  Judge  Douglas  knows.  He 
put  it  there.  He  knows  what  he  put  it  there  for.  We  out- 
siders cannot  say  what  he  put  it  there  for.  The  law  they  were 
passing  was  not  about  States,  and  was  not  making  provision 
for  States.  What  was  it  placed  there  for  ?  After  seeing  the 
Dred  Scott  decision,  which  holds  that  the  people  cannot  ex- 
clude slavery  from  a  Territory,  if  another  Dred  Scott  decision 
shall  come,  holding  that  they  cannot  exclude  it  from  a  State, 
we  shall  discover  that,  when  the  word  was  originally  put  there, 
it  was  in  view  of  something  which  was  to  come  in  due  time, 
we  shall  see  that  it  was  the  other  half  of  something.  I  now 
say  again,  if  there  is  any  different  reason  for  putting  it  there, 
Judge  Douglas,  in  a  good-humored  way,  without  calling  any- 
body a  liar,  can  tell  what  the  reason  was. 

When  the  judge  spoke  at  Clinton,  he  came  very  near  making 
a  charge  of  falsehood  against  me.  He  used,  as  I  found  it 
printed  in  a  newspaper,  which,  I  remember,  was  very  nearly 
like  the  real  speech,  the  following  language  :  — 

I  did  not  answer  the  charge  [of  conspiracy]  before  for  the  reason  that  I 
did  not  suppose  there  was  a  man  in  America  with  a  heart  so  corrupt  as  to 
believe  such  a  charge  could  be  true.  I  have  too  much  respect  for  Mr. 
Lincoln  to  suppose  he  is  serious  in  making  the  charge. 

I  confess  this  is  rath  r  a  curious  view,  that  out  of  respect 
for  me  he  should  consider  I  was  making  what  deemed  rather 
a  grave  charge  in  fun.  I  confess  it  strikes  me  rather 
strangely.  But  I  let  it  pass.  As  the  judge  did  not  for  a 
moment  believe  that  there  was  a  man  in  America  whose  heart 
was  so  "  corrupt  "as  to  make  such  a  charge,  and  as  he  places 
me  among  the  "men  in  America"  who  have  hearts  base 
enough  to  make  such  a  charge,  I  hope  he  will  excuse  me  if 
I  hunt  out  another  charge  very  like  this ;  and,  if  it  should  turn 
out  that  in  hunting  I  should  find  that  other,  and  it  should  turn 


25 

out  to  be  Judge  Douglas  himself  who  made  it,  I  hope  he  will 
reconsider  this  question  of  the  deep  corruption  of  heart  he 
has  thought  fit  to  ascribe  to  me.  In  Judge  Douglas's  speech 
of  March  22,  1858,  which  I  hold  in  my  hand,  he  says:  — 

In  this  connection  there  is  another  topic  to  which  I  desire  to  allude.  I 
seldom  refer  to  the  course  of  newspapers  or  notice  the  articles  which  they 
publish  in  regard  to  myself  ;  but  the  course  of  the  Washington  Union 
has  been  so  extraordinary  for  the  last  two  or  three  months  that  I  think  it 
well  enough  to  make  some  allusion  to  it.  It  has  read  me  out  of  the  Dem- 
ocratic party  every  other  day,  at  least  for  two  or  three  months,  and  keeps 
reading  me  out,  and,  as  if  it  had  not  succeeded,  still  continues  to  read  me 
out,  using  such  terms  as  "  traitor,"  "renegade,"  "  deserter,"  and  other  kind 
and  polite  epithets  of  that  nature.  Sir,  I  have  no  vindication  to  make  of 
my  Democracy  against  the  Washington  Union,  or  any  other  newspaper. 
I  am  willing  to  allow  my  history  and  actions  for  the  last  twenty  years  to 
speak  for  themselves  as  to  my  political  principles  and  my  fidelity  to  political 
obligations.  The  Washington  Union  has  a  personal  grievance.  When 
the  editor  was  nominated  for  public  printer,  I  declined  to  vote  for  him,  and 
stated  that  at  some  time  I  might  give  my  reasons  for  doing  so.  Since  I 
declined  to  give  that  vote,  this  scurrilous  abuse,  these  vindictive  and  con- 
stant attacks,  have  been  repeated  almost  daily  on  me.  Will  my  friend  from 
Michigan  read  the  article  to  which  I  allude  ? 

This  is  a  part  of  the  speech.  You  must  excuse  me  from  read- 
ing the  entire  article  of  the  Washington  Union,  as  Mr. 
Stuart  read  it  for  Mr.  Douglas.  The  judge  goes  on  and  sums 
up,  as  I  think,  correctly :  — 

Mr.  President,  you  here  find  several  distinct  propositions  advanced  boldly 
by  the  Washington  Union  editorially,  and  apparently  authoritatively;  and 
any  man  who  questions  any  of  them  is  denounced  as  an  Abolitionist,  a 
Free-soiler,  a  fanatic.  The  propositions  are,  first,  that  the  primary  object 
of  all  government  at  its  original  institution  is  the  protection  of  person  and 
property;  second,  that  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  declares  that 
the  citizens  of  each  State  shall  be  entitled  to  all  the  privileges  and  immuni- 
ties of  citizens  in  the  several  States ;  and  that,  therefore,  thirdly,  all  State 
laws,  whether  organic  or  otherwise,  which  prohibit  the  citizens  of  one  State 
from  settling  in  another  with  their  slave  property,  and  especially  declaring 
it  forfeited,  are  direct  violations  of  the  original  intention  of  the  government 
and  Constitution  of  the  United  States;  and,  fourth,  that  the  emancipation 
of  the  slaves  of  the  Northern  States  was  a  gross  outrage  on  the  rights  of 
property,  inasmuch  as  it  was  involuntarily  done  on  the  part  of  the  owner. 

Remember  that  this  article  was  published  in  the  Union  on  the  i?th  of 
November,  and  on  the  i8th  appeared  the  first  article  giving  the  adhesion 
of  the  Union  to  the  Lecompton  constitution.  It  was  in  these  words :  — 

"  KANSAS  AND  HER  CONSTITUTION.  The  vexed  question  is  settled. 
The  problem  is  solved.  The  dead  point  of  danger  is  passed.  All  serious 
trouble  to  Kansas  affairs  is  over  and  gone." 


26 

And  a  column  nearly  of  the  same  sort.  Then,  when  you  come  to  look 
into  the  Lecompton  constitution,  you  find  the  same  doctrine  incorporated 
in  it  which  was  put  forth  editorially  in  the  Union.  What  is  it  ? 

"  ARTICLE  7,  Section  \.  The  right  of  property  is  before  and  higher  than 
any  constitutional  sanction :  and  the  right  of  the  owner  of  a  slave  to  such 
slave  and  its  increase  is  the  same  and  as  inviolable  as  the  right  of  the 
owner  of  any  property  whatever." 

Then  in  the  schedule  is  a  provision  that  the  constitution  may  be  amended 
after  1864  by  a  two-thirds  vote. 

"  But  no  alteration  shall  be  made  to  affect  the  right  of  property  in  the 
ownership  of  slaves." 

It  will  be  seen  by  these  clauses  in  the  Lecompton  constitution  that  they 
are  identical  in  spirit  with  the  authoritative  article  in  the  Washington 
Union  of  the  day  previous  to  its  indorsement  of  this  constitution. 

I  pass  over  some  portions  of  the  speech,  and  I  hope  that 
any  one  who  feels  interested  in  this  matter  will  read  the  entire 
section  of  the  speech,  and  see  whether  I  do  the  judge  an  in- 
justice. He  proceeds :  — 

When  I  saw  that  article  in  the  Union  of  the  I7th  of  November, followed 
by  the  glorification  of  "the  Lecompton  constitution  on  the  i8th  of  November, 
and  this  clause  in  the  constitution  asserting  the  doctrine  that  a  State  has 
no  right  to  prohibit  slavery  within  its  limits,  I  saw  that  there  was  a  fatal 
blow  being  struck  at  the  sovereignty  of  the  States  of  this  Union. 

I  stop  the  quotation  there,  again  requesting  that  it  may  all 
be  read.  I  have  read  all  of  the  portion  I  desire  to  comment 
upon.  What  is  this  charge  that  the  judge  thinks  I  must  have 
a  very  corrupt  heart  to  make  ?  It  was  a  purpose  on  the  part 
of  certain  high  f  unction  aries^  to  make  it  impossible  for  the 
people  of  one  State  to  prohibit  the  people  of  any  other  State 
from  entering  it  with  their  "  property,"  so  called,  and  making 
it  a  slave  State.  In  other  words,  it  was  a  charge  implying 
a  design  to  make  the  institution  of  slavery  national.  And  now 
I  ask  your  attention  to  what  Judge  Douglas  has  himself  done 
here.  I  know  that  he  made  that  part  of  the  speech  as 
a  reason  why  he  had  refused  to  vote  for  a  certain  man  for 
public  printer ;  but,  when  we  get  at  it,  the  charge  itself  is  the 
very  one  I  made  against  him,  that  he  thinks  I  am  so  corrupt 
for  uttering.  Now  whom  does  he  make  that  charge  against? 
Does  he  make  it  against  that  newspaper  editor  merely  ?  No: 
he  says  it  is  identical  in  spirit  with  the  Lecompton  constitu- 
tion, and  so  the  framers  of  that  constitution  are  brought  in 


27 

•with  the  editor  of  the  newspaper  in  that  "  fatal  blow  being 
struck."  He  did  not  call  it  a  "  conspiracy."  In  his  language 
it  is  a  "fatal  blow  being  struck."  And,  if  the  words  carry  the 
meaning  better  when  changed  from  a  "  conspiracy "  into  a 
"fatal  blow  being  struck,"  I  will  change  my  expression,  and 
call  it  "fatal  blow  being  struck."  We  see  the  charge  made 
not  merely  against  the  editor  of  the  Union,  but  all  the  framers 
of  the  Lecompton  constitution ;  and  not  only  so,  but  the 
article  was  an  authoritative  article.  By  whose  authority  ?  Is 
there  any  question  but  that  he  means  it  was  by  the  authority 
of  the  President  and  his  cabinet, —  the  administration?  Is 
there  any  sort  of  question  but  that  he  means  to  make  that 
charge  ?  Then  there  are  the  editors  of  the  Union,  the  framers 
of  the  Lecompton  constitution,  the  President  of  the  United 
States  and  his  cabinet,  and  all  the  supporters  of  the  Lecompton 
constitution,  in  Congress  and  out  of  Congress,  who  are  all 
involved  in  this  "fatal  blow  being  struck."  I  commend  to 
Judge  Douglas's  consideration  the  question  of  how  corrupt  a 
man's  heart  must  be  to  make  such  a  charge ! 

Now,  my  friends,  I  have  but  one  branch  of  the  subject,  in 
the  little  time  I  have  left,  to  which  to  call  your  attention ;  and, 
as  I  shall  come  to  a  close  at  the  end  of  that  branch,  it  is 
probable  that  I  shall  not  occupy  quite  all  the  time  allotted  to 
me.  Although  on  these  questions  I  would  like  to  talk  twice 
as  long  as  I  have,  I  could  not  enter  upon  another  head  and 
discuss  it  properly  without  running  over  my  time.  I  ask  the 
attention  of  the  people  here  assembled  and  elsewhere  to  the 
course  that  Judge  Douglas  is  pursuing  every  day  as  bearing 
upon  this  question  of  making  slavery  national.  Not  going 
back  to  the  records,  but  taking  the  speeches  he  makes,  the 
speeches  he  made  yesterday  and  day  before,  and  makes 
constantly  all  over  the  country, —  I  ask  your  attention  to  them. 
In  the  first  place,  what  is  necessary  to  make  the  institution 
national  ?  Not  war.  There  is  no  danger  that  the  people  of 
Kentucky  will  shoulder  their  muskets,  and,  with  a  young 
nigger  stuck  on  every  bayonet,  march  into  Illinois  and  force 
them  upon  us.  There  is  no  danger  of  our  going  over  there 
and  making  war  upon  them.  Then  what  is  necessary  for  the 
nationalization  of  slavery?  It  is  simply  the  next  Dred  Scott 
decision.  It  is  merely  for  the  Supreme  Court  to  decide  that 
no  State  under  the  Constitution  can  exclude  it,  just  as  they 
have  already  decided  that  under  the  Constitution  neither  Con- 


28 

gress  nor  the  Territorial  legislature  can  do  it.  When  that  is 
decided  and  acquiesced  in,  the  whole  thing  is  done.  This 
being  true,  and  this  being  the  way,  as  I  think,  that  slavery  is 
to  be  made  national,  let  us  consider  what  Judge  Douglas  is 
doing  every  day  to  that  end.  In  the  first  place,  let  us  see 
what  influence  he  is  exerting  on  public  sentiment.  In  this 
and  like  communities,  public  sentiment  is  everything.  With 
public  sentiment,  nothing  can  fail :  without  it,  nothing  can 
succeed.  Consequently,  he  who  moulds  public  sentiment  goes 
deeper  than  he  who  enacts  statutes  or  pronounces  decisions. 
He  makes  statutes  and  decisions  possible  or  impossible  to  be 
executed.  This  must  be  borne  in  mind,  as  also  the  additional 
fact  that  Judge  Douglas  is  a  man  of  vast  influence,  so  great 
that  it  is  enough  for  many  men  to  profess  to  believe  anything 
when  they  once  find  out  that  Judge  Douglas  professes  to 
believe  it.  Consider  also  the  attitude  he  occupies  at  the  head 
of  a  large  party, —  a  party,  which  he  claims  has  a  majority  of 
all  the  voters  in  the  country. 

This  man  sticks  to  a  decision  which  forbids  the  people  of  a 
Territory  to  exclude  slavery,  and  he  does  so  not  because  he 
says  it  is  right  in  itself,— he  does  not  give  any  opinion  on  that, 
—  but  because  it  has  been  decided  by  the  court;  and,  being 
decided  by  the  court,  he  is,  and  you  are,  bound  to  take  it  in 
your  political  action  as  law, —  not  that  he  judges  at  all  of  its 
merits,  but  because  a  decision  of  the  court  is  to  him  a  "  Thus 
saith  the  Lord."  He  places  it  on  that  ground  alone,  and  you 
will  bear  in  mind  that  thus  committing  himself  unreservedly  to 
this  decision  commits  him  to  the  next  one  just  as  firmly  as  to 
this.  He  did  not  commit  himself  on  account  of  the  merit  or 
demerit  of  the  decision,  but  it  is  a  "  Thus  saith  the  Lord."  The 
next  decision,  as  much  as  this,  will  be  a  "Thus  saith  the 
Lord."  There  is  nothing  that  can  divert  or  turn  him  away 
from  this  decision.  It  is  nothing  that  I  point  out  to  him  that 
his  great  prototype,  General  Jackson,  did  not  believe  in  ^he 
binding  force  of  decisions.  It  is  nothing  to  him  that  Jefferson 
did  not  so  believe.  I  have  said  that  I  have  often  heard  him 
approve  of  Jackson's  course  in  disregarding  the  decision  of  the 
Supreme  Court  pronouncing  a  national  bank  constitutional. 
He  says  I  did  not  hear  him  say  so.  He  denies  the  accuracy  of 
my  recollection.  I  say  he  ought  to  know  better  than  I ;  but  I 
will  make  no  question  about  this  thing,  though  it  still  seems 
to  me  that  I  heard  him  say  it  twenty  times.  I  will  tell  him, 


29 

though,  that  he  now  claims  to  stand  on  the  Cincinnati  plat- 
form, which  affirms  that  Congress  cannot  charter  a  national 
bank,  in  the  teeth  of  that  old  standing  decision  that  Congress 
can  charter  a  bank.  And  I  remind  him  of  another  piece  of 
history  on  the  question  of  respect  for  judicial  decisions,  and  it 
is  a  piece  of  Illinois  history,  belonging  to  a  time  when  a  large 
party  to  which  Judge  Douglas  belonged  were  displeased  with  a 
decision  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  Illinois,  because  they  had 
decided  that  a  governor  could  not  remove  a  secretary  of  state. 
You  will  find  the  whole  story  in  Ford's  History  of  Illinois,  and 
I  know  that  Judge  Douglas  will  not  deny  that  he  was  then  in 
favor  of  overslaughing  that  decision  by  the  mode  of  adding  five 
new  judges,  so  as  to  vote  down  the  four  old  ones.  Not  only 
so,  but  it  ended  in  the  judge's  sitting  down  on  the  very  bench 
as  one  of  the  five  new  judges  to  break  down  the  four  old  ones. 
It  was  in  this  way  precisely  that  he  got  his  title  of  judge. 
Now,  when  the  judge  tells  me  that  men  appointed  conditionally 
to  sit  as  members  of  a  court  will  have  to  be  catechised  before- 
hand upon  some  subject,  I  say,  "  You  know,  judge :  you  have 
tried  it."  When  he  says  a  court  of  this  kind  will  lose  the  con- 
fidence of  all  men,  will  be  prostituted  and  disgraced  by  such  a 
proceeding,  I  say,  "  You  know  best,  judge :  you  have  been 
through  the  mill." 

But  I  cannot  shake  Judge  Douglas's  teeth  loose  from  the 
Dred  Scott  decision.  Like  some  obstinate  animal  (I  mean  no 
disrespect)  that  will  hang  on  when  he  has  once  got  his  teeth 
fixed, — you  may  cut  off  a  leg  or  you  may  tear  away  an  arm, 
still  he  will  not  relax  his  hold.  And  so  I  may  point  out  to 
the  judge,  and  say  that  he  is  bespattered  all  over,  from  the 
beginning  of  his  political  life  to  the  present  time,  with  attacks 
upon  judicial  decisions, —  I  may  cut  off  limb  after  limb  of  his 
public  record,  and  strive  to  wrench  from  him  a  single  dictum 
of  the  court,  yet  I  cannot  divert  him  from  it.  He  hangs  to  the 
last  to  the  Dred  Scott  decision.  These  things  show  there  is 
a  purpose  strong  as  death  and  eternity  for  which  he  adheres 
to  this  decision,  and  for  which  he  will  adhere  to  all  other  deci- 
sions of  the  same  court.  [A  Hibernian  :  "  Give  us  something 
besides  Drid  Scott."]  Yes;  no  doubt  you  want  to  hear  some- 
thing that  don't  hurt.  Now,  having  spoken  of  the  Dred  Scott 
decision,  one  more  word,  and  I  am  done.  Henry  Clay,  my 
beau-ideal  of  a  statesman,  the  man  for  whom  I  fought  all  my 
humble  life, —  Henry  Clay  once  said  of  a  class  of  men  who  would 


30 

repress  all  tendencies  to  liberty  and  ultimate  emancipation  that 
they  must,  if  they  would  do  this,  go  back  to  the  era  of  our 
independence,  and  muzzle  the  cannon  which  thunders  its  annual 
joyous  return ;  they  must  blow  out  the  moral  lights  around  us  ; 
they  must  penetrate  the  human  soul,  and  eradicate  there  the 
love  of  liberty ;  and  then,  and  not  till  then,  could  they  per- 
petuate slavery  in  this  country !  To  my  thinking,  Judge 
Douglas  is,  by  his  example  and  vast  influence,  doing  that  very 
thing  in  this  community  when  he  says  that  the  negro  has 
nothing  in  the  Declaration  of  Independence.  Henry  Clay 
plainly  understood  the  contrary.  Judge  Douglas  is  going  back 
to  the  era  of  our  Revolution,  and  to  the  extent  of  his  ability 
muzzling  the  cannon  which  thunders  its  annual  joyous  return. 
When  he  invites  any  people,  willing  to  have  slavery,  to  estab- 
lish it,  he  is  blowing  out  the  moral  lights  around  us.  When  he 
says  he  "  cares  not  whether  slavery  is  voted  down  or  voted  up," 
—  that  it  is  a  sacred  right  of  self-government, —  he  is,  in  my  judg- 
ment, penetrating  the  human  soul,  and  eradicating  the  light  of 
reason  and  the  love  of  liberty  in  this  American  people.  And 
now  I  will  only  say  that  when,  by  all  these  means  and  appli- 
ances, Judge  Douglas  shall  succeed  in  bringing  public  sentiment 
to  an  exact  accordance  with  his  own  views, —  when  these  vast 
assemblages  shall  echo  back  all  these  sentiments, — when  they 
shall  come  to  repeat  his  views  and  to  avow  his  principles,  and 
to  say  all  that  he  says  on  these  mighty  questions, —  then  it 
needs  only  the  formality  of  the  second  Dred  Scott  decision, 
which  he  indorses  in  advance,  to  make  slavery  alike  lawful  in 
all  the  States, —  old  as  well  as  new,  North  as  well  as  South. 


LINCOLN'S  FAREWELL  ADDRESS  AT  SPRINGFIELD,  ILL.,  AS 

HE  WAS  LEAVING  FOR  WASHINGTON, 

FEBRUARY  n,   1861. 

My  Friends, —  No  one,  not  in  my  situation,  can  appreciate 
my  feeling  of  sadness  at  this  parting.  To  this  place,  and  the 
kindness  of  this  people,  I  owe  everything.  Here  I  have  lived 
a  quarter  of  a  century,  and  have  passed  from  a  young  to  an 
old  man.  Here  my  children  have  been  born,  and  one  is 
buried.  I  now  leave,  not  knowing  when  or  whether  ever  I 
may  return,  with  a  task  before  me  greater  than  that  which 
rested  upon  Washington.  Without  the  assistance  of  that 
Divine  Being  who  ever  attended  him,  I  cannot  succeed.  With 
that  assistance,  I  cannot  fail.  Trusting  in  Him  who  can  go 
with  me,  and  remain  with  you,  and  be  everywhere  for  good,  let 
us  confidently  hope  that  all  will  yet  be  well.  To  His  care 
commending  you,  as  I  hope  in  your  prayers  you  will  commend 
me,  I  bid  you  an  affectionate  farewell. 


Abraham  Lincoln  was  nominated  for  the  United  States  Senate  by  the 
Republican  State  Convention  at  Springfield,  111.,  June  17,  1858,  and 
accepted  the  nomination  in  a  remarkable  speech  before  the  convention, 
sharply  defining  the  national  issues  of  the  time.  Senator  Douglas,  then  a 
candidate  for  re-election,  reviewed  this  speech  in  an  address  at  Chicago, 
July  9,  Mr.  Lincoln  being  present;  and  the  next  evening  Mr.  Lincoln  made 
a  speech  in  reply.  After  various  other  speeches  by  both  candidates  a 
series  of  seven  joint  debates  was  arranged,  which  took  place  at  Ottawa, 
Freeport,  Jonesboro,  Charleston,  Galesburg,  Quincy,  and  Alton,  111.,  the 
first  on  August  21,  the  last  on  October  15,  1858.  The  first  speaker  in 
each  debate  occupied  an  hour,  an  hour  and  a  half  was  given  for  the  reply, 
and  then  the  first  speaker  had  a  half-hour  to  close  the  debate.  Mr.  Doug- 
las's closing  word  at  Ottawa  is  not  given  in  the  present  leaflet,  as  it  related 
to  personalities  and  not  to  the  general  political  issues.  A  complete  report 
of  all  of  the  debates  is  given  in  the  first  volume  of  Lincoln's  Works,  edited 
by  Nicolay  and  Hay.  In  the  same  volume  will  be  found  Lincoln's  great 
speech  at  the  Cooper  Institute,  New  York,  February  27,  1860,  which  did 
more  than  anything  else  save  the  debates  with  Douglas  to  bring  him 
prominently  before  the  country  at  large,  and  insure  his  nomination  for  the 
presidency  later  in  the  same  year. 

Nicolay  and  Hay's  "  Abraham  Lincoln,  A  History,"  in  ten  volumes,  is 
more  than  a  biography  of  Lincoln  :  it  is  a  comprehensive  history  as  well  of 
the  anti-slavery  struggle  and  the  civil  war.  There  are  many  briefer  lives 
of  Lincoln, —  by  Arnold,  Holland,  Morse,  Raymond,  and  others.  The  Life 


32 

by  Herndon  has  special  interest  as  the  work  of  one  who  was  Lincoln's  tew 
partner  and  intimate  friend  for  many  years.  The  essay  on  Lincoln  by 
Carl  Schurz  is  a  magnificent  critical  estimate.  "  Reminiscences  of  Lincoln 
by  Distinguished  Men  of  his  Time,"  edited  by  Rice,  is  a  book  of  great 
value.  The  Life  of  Lincoln  by  Charles  Carleton  Coffin  is  an  admirable 
work  for  young  people.  Lincoln's  two  Inaugural  Addresses  and  the 
Emancipation  Proclamation  are  published  in  Old  South  Leaflet  No.  n. 


UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS-URBANA 
973.7L63C4L63F  C002 

THE  FIRST  LINCOLN  AND  DOUGLAS  DEBATE.  BO 


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